Archive for the ‘pc gaming’ tag

Posted on 17th Sep 2010 at 11:06 by Richard Swinburne with 14 comments

I've recently completed Mafia 2 and despite spending far too many hours looking at the benchmarks I decided to grab the Jimmy's Vendetta DLC because I still wanted something more.

I don't know what I really expected, but I think my thick, rose-tinted glasses for the original Mafia created a blind faith that Mafia 2's DLC might offer...something. I'd read it was designed to be more 'Open World', with mission selection instead of the exclusively linear, point-to-point play that Mafia 2's singleplayer forced on you.

I didn't come away thinking Mafia 2 should have been a more open world 'GTA in the 50s' though, because what it needed more than that was a better story. Although Empire Bay was clearly designed with open world in mind, 2K must have dropped it from single player at some point. Jimmy's Vendetta restores the open world, but it'll still leave you feeling disappointed and wanting more because it suffers from many of the same flaws as the original.

You see, Jimmy is even less likeable and relateable than Vito or Joe. He looks like Terry Tibbs, but with the appeal of Teri Hatcher (that link's SFW but not SF-stomach) and the attitude of Mad Max.

When Joe reviewed Splinter Cell: Conviction on the Xbox 360 he thought it a highly entertaining spy stealth ‘em up that was, like main protagonist Sam Fisher’s victims, stunningly executed. On PC the game has also received plenty of similar acclaim but after playing it through myself, I can’t help but disagree.

For me, Conviction is Splinter Cell dumbed down to an infuriating degree with much of the stealth and careful approach of its predecessors chucked in the bin for a bodycount that even Jack Bauer would be impressed with. In short, I think it’s sold out everything that made the franchise special. Here’s why - with spoilers.